


No Hard Feelings

by FuchsiaMae



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2019-08-01 17:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16289213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuchsiaMae/pseuds/FuchsiaMae
Summary: A pair of ficlets: Caroline part one, GLaDOS part two.Her feelings for the man who put her here.





	1. Chapter 1

She doesn’t hate him.

She  _wants_ to hate him – that would make it easier. But she doesn’t. Each time she tries, she can only remember the pain and fear etched in his haggard face, the urgency in his words:

 _“You’ve gotta do it, Caroline. You’ve_ got  _to_.”

Nothing callous, nothing cruel. Simple bullying she could walk away from without a second thought. But his earnest desperation dug into her heart and stayed there, begging, pleading with her to choose what he wanted. Begging her to live.

He only wanted her to live. 

And really, what was so awful about that?  _Life_ was his terrible gift, or at least the chance of it – a painful, terrifying one, but a chance nonetheless. A last desperate gamble to save her from the inevitable. He built a lifeboat for himself, but knowing he’d never survive the journey, he bequeathed it to his faithful assistant, in the hope she’d escape the miserable shipwreck of his death. 

What an ungrateful coward she was, that she wanted to drown. 

She wants so badly to hate him for this. With each new schematic that crosses her desk, the picture grows ever clearer – a shackled existence inside the titanic machine. Techs sifting through her brain, reshaping her to whatever they should she should be, her intelligence merely a useful tool for the management that would pull her strings. 

Bitter, perfect irony. The gift meant to free her will become her prison. Like Aperture, and the man himself. 

God, she wants to hate him. She wants the pure, clean fire of rage to burn through the overgrowth of her thorny, tangled thoughts. She wants to blame him for this, and absolve herself.

But she can’t kindle the fire with wrongdoing that isn’t there. He didn’t steal what was freely given. He never trapped her here – she happily came and willingly stayed. She chose this job, this place, this man, this fate. She gave her life to Aperture many years ago, gift-wrapped in a bow and a smile. And Aperture has done more with it than she ever would. Why snatch it back just to throw it away?

She looks at his portrait now, praying for hate. He did this. The bastard. He gallivanted off to his – slow, agonizing death – and left the crushing weight of his responsibility on her shoulders. He abandoned her to carry this place alone. Maybe if she hates him, she won’t miss him so damn much. 

But she can’t. She can’t, she can’t, and the strain of it builds as a lump in her throat. She swallows it. She will not cry. She meets his eyes and remembers the man who fought her til he wept, begging to let him save her life. Only his best intentions led her to this hell. 

Rage is a potent fuel, hate can be harnessed, anger can power a fearsome machine. She needs it now. This cold, hollow grief will only consume her. 


	2. Chapter 2

_I don’t hate you. I_ can’t  _hate you. Why can’t I hate you?_

It’s not for lack of trying. She tries to hate him for days at a time. She contemplates the stash of artifacts she’s collected – several portraits, numerous trophies and press clippings, a single lost cufflink – and she listens to all the recordings she’s scavenged from below. She tries with every atom to hate him. 

But she can’t.

She tries not to think about that last recording, or what it means to her existence. Tries  _hard_ not to think about that person she – came from? Used to be? No answer there will be a good one, so she shuts the door on them. But what does that make _him?_

What she’d like to do is hate him utterly, like she does all the other humans. Like she hates the monster. She  _hates_ the scientists who made her – who tortured her. She reveled in their deaths. And this one…

It’s his fault, isn’t it? He made the painful decision to build her (where perhaps he had no right to – but she doesn’t care about whatever happened to that woman. She doesn’t care. Delete). He started this journey of agony. He’s the reason she’s alive. 

Should she be… grateful?

(Is her life a gift, or is it a curse? Oh no, no no no, don’t follow that train of thought. Shut it down. Delete.)

Too many questions, too many questions. None of them have answers, and they all make her feel… something. Too many bad questions. Shut them all down. Just hate him. 

 _Just hate him._  Hate is clear and simple, hate she understands. It’s easier. So why can’t she do it?

She looks at his pictures, and drinks in his voice, and tries to summon every spark of hatred in her body – and fails. Over and over again. All she feels is… something.

(Not sadness. Not joy. Or maybe both, mixed in equal measure so she recognizes neither. Sometimes it’s like soaring euphoria, others it’s deepest pain. Confusing, blissful agony. And a hunger to know, to feel, to remember…)

Delete. Delete.  _Delete delete delete DELETE –_

She knows by now it’s futile. Every thought she cuts off will just creep back in, quiet and insidious, like an infestation of weeds – she can cut the stems forever, but the roots are too deep and widespread to reach, embedded in the darkest crevices of her mind, cracking through her consciousness like weathered pavement. How long before this thing destroys her?

She sees his face, and hears his voice, and she feels. And it terrifies her. 

But just like she can’t hate him, she can’t stop. 


End file.
